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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 February 2022
One of the most attractive aspects of our national theatre is that it continually offers the most unexpected surprises. These surprises are multiplied within a dramatic world as extensive as that created by Lope de Vega. Furthermore, these surprises are seen in their fullest clarity when the illuminating light of modern ideas are turned on the art forms of the seventeenth century. This happens when we reread The Outrageous Saint. At first this comedy makes a very unsatisfactory impression. From a normal point of view, the monstrousness of the theme seems explicable only by supposing that Lope, always impulsive, had given way to irresponsible and uncontrolled fantasies. But after reading Freud and the works of other modern psychoanalysts—something that at first sight appears irrelevant to the understanding of an author of the Golden Age—we realize that Lope's play was far in advance of its time.
* Rank presumably did not read The Outrageous Saint.—E.B.
1 Gerardo comments on this as follows:
You grant me the name of old man and suppress the word father, you're so mad, even my name is now unfit for your lips.
Leonido in the second act becomes indignant when Gerardo calls him son: “I'll throw a gag in your mouth / if you call me your son again.“
2 In this regard note the following:
When Elvira insists that she will defend her city, Don Sancho exclaims:
Look, sister, you are a monster, because even with all your beauty you have crazy thoughts.
Also note the scene of the King Don Sancho with Bellido Dolfos:
Likewise note the scene of soldiers with guitars near the rampart of Toro:
3 A devoted Freudian would find erotic symbols in these objects, but it is not necessary to look for such exaggerated examples in order to be able to diagnose the “Leonido case.”
4 Note that Leonido's father miraculously regains his sight in this scene.
For example:
Nail me to You on Your cross and You will have me safe with three nails. —Sonnet of “The Good Custody and Sacred Rimes”